Review: Selby and Friends delivers magical sounds at City Recital Hall
April 21, 2016
Harriet Cunningham
Reviewer rating:
Selby and Friends
City Recital Hall, April 14
★★★★
City Recital Hall has a good record in picking winners with its ensemble-in-residence program.
First up there was Kathryn Selby and her many fine friends, who have delivered exceptional chamber music programs centering on the piano for many years.
Selby and Friends’ second concert for the year brought old friends Susie Park and Clancy Newman, on violin and cello respectively, together with the virtuosic pianism of artistic director Kathryn Selby.
Amongst a substantial and satisfying program of Brahms and Shostakovich, the curiosity was a 1928 work from American composer Aaron Copland.
The trio performed Vitebsk with unflinching commitment to its arresting sound world, which called for violin and cello to play with deliberately sour intonation – not as easy a task as it might sound, when you have spent a lifetime perfecting your tuning. Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor took us back into a more straightforward sound world, but a no less torrid one, emotionally. Different risks, and different rewards, from three seasoned performers.